Dare waylaid Charles on his return from the stables, and linked his arm in his. He felt the most enthusiastic admiration for the tall reserved Englishman who had done him such signal service. He longed for an opportunity of showing his gratitude to him. It was perhaps just as well that he was not aware how very differently Charles regarded himself. "You are just going?" Dare asked. "In five minutes." Charles let his arm hang straight down, but Dare kept it. "Tell me, my friend, one thing." Dare had evidently been turning over something in his mind. "This poor unfortunate, this Stephens, why did he not tell you all this the _first_ time you went to see him in the afternoon?" "He did." "What?" said Dare, looking hard at him. "He _did_, and you only tell me this morning! You let me go all through the night first. Why was this?" Charles did not answer. "I ask one thing more," continued Dare. "Did you divine two nights ago, from what I said in a moment of confidence, that Miss Deyncourt was the--the--" "Of course I did," said Charles, sharply. "You made it sufficiently obvious." "Ah!" said Dare. "Ah!" and he shut his eyes and nodded his head several times. "Anything more you would like to know?" asked Charles, inattentive and impatient, mainly occupied in trying to hide the nameless exasperation which invariably seized him when he looked at Dare, and to stifle the contemptuous voice which always whispered as he did so, "And you have given up Ruth to him--to _him_!" "No, no, no!" said Dare, shaking his head gently, and regarding him the while with infinite interest through his half-closed eyelids. The dog-cart was coming round, and Charles hastily turned from him, and, getting in, drove quickly away. Whatever Dare said or did seemed to set his teeth on edge, and he lashed up the horse till he was out of sight of the house. Dare, with arms picturesquely folded, stood looking after him with mixed feelings of emotion and admiration. "One sees it well," he said to himself. "One sees now the reason of many things. He kept silent at first, but he was too good, too noble. In the night he considered; in the morning he told all. I wondered that he went to Vandon; but he did it not for me. It was for her sake." Dare's feelings were touched to the quick.